TOYOTA WINS CALIF. DEATH LAWSUIT

LOS ANGELES 
A jury found Thursday that Toyota Motor Corp. is not liable for the death of a San Bernardino County woman killed when her 2006 Camry apparently accelerated and crashed despite her efforts to stop.

Jurors deliberated for about five days before reaching their decision and concluding the vehicle’s design didn’t contribute to the death of Noriko Uno, 66, who died in August 2009 when she was struck by another motorist, sending her vehicle into a telephone pole and tree.

Uno’s family was seeking $20 million in damages, claiming the crash could have been avoided if Toyota had installed a brake override system. The jury found the 86-year-old motorist who ran a stop sign and hit Uno should pay the family $10 million, plaintiffs’ attorney Garo Mardirossian said.

Toyota blamed driver error for the crash.

Toyota recalled millions of vehicles worldwide after drivers reported that some of its vehicles were surging unexpectedly. The company agreed to pay $1 billion in other suits.

The outcome of the lawsuit involving Uno could influence whether Toyota should be held responsible for sudden unintended acceleration as part of a larger group of lawsuits filed in state courts.

“As an important bellwether in these consolidated state proceedings, we believe this verdict sets a significant benchmark by helping further confirm that Toyota vehicles are safe with or without brake override,” Toyota spokeswoman Carly Schaffner said.

In 2009, a California Highway Patrol officer and three of his family members were killed in Santee in 2009 after their car, a Toyota-built Lexus, reached speeds of more than 120 mph, hit an SUV, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames. Investigators determined a wrong-size floor mat trapped the accelerator and caused the crash.

That discovery spurred a series of recalls involving more than 14 million vehicles and a flood of lawsuits soon followed, with numerous complaints of accelerations in several models, and brake defects with the Prius hybrid.

In the Uno case, Mardirossian argued Toyota made safety an option instead of a standard by not installing a mechanism to override the accelerator. He added the automaker also failed to warn customers what to do if an accelerator became stuck.

Toyota defended its vehicles, saying it had a state of the art braking system and argued an override component would not have prevented the crash. The company’s lawyers said Uno likely mistook the gas pedal for the brake.

The verdict adds to the list of the automaker’s court victories.

The Uno case is the first so-called “bellwether” case in state courts, which is chosen by a judge to help predict the potential outcome of other lawsuits making similar claims.

Another sudden acceleration case began in Oklahoma this week. There are more than 80 similar cases filed in state courts. Mardirossian said evidence he presented at trial may help other pending cases against Toyota.